In the world of speedrunning, it's common for dedicated runners to remain loyal to a single game or series, with the occasional dabble into fresh games as they are announced at game conferences. Some are dedicated to a genre, such as racing or first-person shooters, but rarely do we see runners that have the broad skill set to conquer a variety of genres, game engines, and platforms. There is a small subset of speedrunners whose goal is to obtain world records from the widest variety of games (world record grinders), and Akuretaki is one of them.

This community focuses on high profile games within different game groups and attempts to battle out full game and individual level records. These games range from old Atari hits, such as Sky Jinks, to IL intensive web games, such as Seterra.

Seterra Individual Levels are largely dominated by World Record Grinders and Run Farmers

Notable World Records:

To commemorate the achievement, let's take a look at some of the most notable world records out of the 10K achieved:

1. Nox - Wizard Any% in 34:32

Akuretaki's main speedgame, he continues to dominate the leaderboard with his large skill gap over the competition. He is currently working on a route for the hardcore difficulty.

Wizard% is his most optimized category

2. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear - Pandora Trigger (Recruit) in 0:14.567

Many fans of the Tom Clancy series will quickly recognize rogue spear for its gameplay being very similar to other first-person shooters released in 1998. Akuretaki beat this world record by a single frame.

3. Phasmophobia - 200% (Launch Maps) in 1:53:45

Akuretaki was the first person to pull off a full 200% run in the game, and the only person to complete the category successfully. Why? An extreme level of luck required to complete a run, and Akuretaki spent hours in this category for a completed run.

Phasmophobia is a popular horror game released in 2020

Interview:

1. What was your first speedrun, and what made you choose that game?

I used to record Mario Kart Double Dash attempts back in 2005; however, my first speedrun with the intent of submitting to a site was World of Tanks. I played this game since 2012 and had hundreds of hours in the game, so it seemed like an easy choice. I ran the Soviet Union Boot Camp category, where I was minutes behind first place. The heavy RNG component made me take a break from the game, and I never submit to the site for this category. My first submission to SRC was Phasmophobia.

2. What made you decide to start your world record journey?

After running Phasmophobia for quite some time, I ran a game called Carmageddon II. I didn't like the RNG part of the full game run, so I decided to run only Individual Levels (IL's) for the game, taking almost all of the world records. Once I completed this game, I started to search the Newest Added tab on the games page for the site, where I found a game with a lot of IL's. A moderator of one of the games, Darrel69, invited me to a Discord server with statistics about anything you could think about on the site. One of these stats was Most World Records by a User, and I wanted to be on the top of that list.

3. What have you learned from your world record journey, and have you been exposed to other genres you otherwise would have not played?

The overall take-away from my journey is that there is no such thing as a best speedrunner in any sense. Each game has its top player that creates a gap between themselves and the rest of the play field. It's impossible for one runner to master every genre, platform, and game engine, so make the most of your skills and play the games that are most fun to you.

I would say having a variety of games really reduces burnout and I always feel motivated to grind a game. Changing games creates a fresh start, and there is no better way to reduce burnout than to start from the bottom of a leaderboard and work your way up the rankings. Also, after playing hundreds of games, it's much more relaxing to run glitchless than to constantly learn new out-of-bounds and weird mechanic glitches.

4. What tips would you give to new runners wanting to go down your path?

The biggest barrier of entry for any game is the resources provided by the community. When you are searching for games to run, try and find a commentary run to follow along with, it makes the learning process much more seamless. ALWAYS CHECK THE NEWEST ADDED GAMES! There is no better way to find a hidden gem of the game than this page, so check it frequently to make sure you don't miss anything that may interest you.

For following world records that you may want to take, follow games in a genre you like and make a list of what world records interest you. Follow users from genres you are interested in as well, as they usually spot high quality games quickly and go for early world records.

Thanks to Akuretaki for the interview, and congratulations on world record milestone! For those interested in keeping up-to-date with your own standings on many site leaderboards (World Records, Verifications, Total Runs, Etc.), make sure to join Farmington on Discord.